Mobile devices, such as cellular telephones, generally receive and transmit information such a voice and data to and from a base station. The mobile device may include a ring tone or vibration capability to indicate an incoming call or data. The ring tone generally includes an audio alert to notify the user that the mobile device is receiving an incoming call. The audio alert may include intermittent beeps or a series of tones with varying pitches, tempos, or other audio characteristics to form a tune. A mobile device may also include a vibrating alert. A vibrating alert is useful when the mobile device is in a noisy environment or where the ring tone noise might disturb others. Additionally, the vibrating alert is useful for users who are hearing impaired. Generally, mobile devices with a vibrating function have a motor connected to an unbalanced weight that vibrates or shakes the device to alert the user when an incoming call is received. Other alerts that may be associated with a mobile device include audio files, games, images, video, and lighting patterns.
A user, generally, chooses the type of alert and certain characteristics of the alert, such as the volume or vibrate. In some mobile devices, a pick-list may be selected by the user that includes one or more complimentary multi-media effects. Complimentary multi-media effects include audio files, ring tones, vibrator patterns, games, images, video sequences, and lighting patterns. In some conventional mobile devices, a user may associate a pick-list with a pre-determined event. Events include incoming calls, e-mail messages, text messages, voice messages, time, alarms, or pages. For each event occurrence, a multi-media effect from the associated pick-list is selected and played. Upon the subsequent occurrence of the same event, a different multi-media effect is selected from the associated pick-list, thereby providing the user with a variety of effects.
The different multi-media effects, however, do not have similar traits, features, or a common aspect between the multi-media effects. Consequently, the pick-list lacks multi-media effects that, individually or in a group, produce a caricature-like effect when events occur. Furthermore, a typical conventional mobile device does not monitor for a variety of changes related to the mobile phone. Generally, the only detected events are call log information and user-set alarms. The multi-media effect is selected randomly from a user created pick-list and does not specifically relate to the particular event being detected.
In other mobile devices, a ring tone is selected by a network device and sent to a mobile device with properties such as tempo, volume, pitch, and rhythm based on information from a call log. For example, a faster ring tone may be selected and played for each successive message or call sent to a particular person on the same day or a ring tone with a louder volume when a previous call from the caller was missed by the mobile device user. Selecting ring tone properties based on call log information, however, does not monitor and select ring tones based on other events that may be associated with the mobile device. Furthermore, the ring tones are played with different characteristics and are not thematically related with common characteristics and do not provide a mobile device with personality traits developed by ring tones.
Accordingly, a need exists for a mobile device system and method that selects and plays multimedia effects based on a variety of mobile device events where the notifications are related with common characteristics thereby creating a mobile device with a personality and bringing the mobile device “to life.” A need also exists for a mobile device system and method whereby the multimedia effects available to be selected are dynamically changed without input from the mobile device user.